The present disclosure relates to an electroencephalogram analysis apparatus, an electroencephalogram analysis program, and an electroencephalogram analysis method for analyzing electroencephalograms measured at the head of a test subject.
Mood disorders such as depression, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder (symptom where a depressed state and a manic state alternately appear) cannot be diagnosed from the physical symptoms of patients. Therefore, clinical methods such as asking patients about their conditions are generally conducted to diagnose such mood disorders. Meanwhile, it is difficult for patients to judge such mood disorders by themselves, and the patients are thus likely to lose opportunities to consult doctors at the early stages of the disorders. It is assumed that the availability of any clear barometers indicating such mood disorders facilitates the judgement of the mood disorders, thus making it possible for patients to judge the mood disorders by themselves.
In recent years, there have been developed technologies for diagnosing mood disorders such as depression based on electroencephalograms (electrical activities of the brain of a human). For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2009-518076 discloses a “system and method of analyzing and evaluating depression and other mood disorders using electroencephalogram (EEG) measurement values.” The system allows the evaluation of the mood disorders based on the results of electroencephalograms measured when test subjects are in a wakeful state (i.e. in a non-sleep state), more specifically, based on the asymmetry of right and left front qEEGs (quantitative electroencephalograms).